


The Signs of Love

by QuoteIntangible



Series: Signs of Love [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blind!Ryan, But Only Because Soulmates Share a Bond, Disabilities, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Medical Conditions, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of past child abuse, Minor Drug Use, Supernatural Elements, Underage Drinking, Unintentional Drug Use - Kind Of, college shenanigans, probably a few medical inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteIntangible/pseuds/QuoteIntangible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I jumped on the soulmate bandwagon and wrote this awesome - if I do say so myself - piece of fanfic.</p><p>In a world where most people are born with the first sentence their soulmate will ever say to them tattooed on their body, Spencer is born with a tattoo composed of dots, and lines and arrows. How is he supposed to find his soulmate if he can't even figure out what his tattoo means?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Signs of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been to UCLA, so I based some of the buildings, and landmarks, and some of their experiences on my own college experiences and the college I went to. Also, sorry for any mistakes. I do re-read my stories, several times, but I never catch all of my mistakes, and this story was especially a pain to edit because of how long it is. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Sadly, I have never met any of these people, and nothing that happens in this story is even remotely true, nor am I making any money from this.

 

Spencer discovered he was a freak the day he learned the entire alphabet, from A all the way to Z, on his third day of pre-school. Once home, he ran to the bathroom, tore off his shirt, and stared at the black tattoo curved horizontal along his arm just underneath his shoulder. His mother never told him what it meant, always looked a little sad when she saw his, but Ryan told him his tattoo displayed the first words his soulmate would ever speak to him. George Ryan Ross the Third never lied to Spencer.

He knew his father and mother were soulmates, and all the other mommies and daddies he knew were, too. Everyone said the soulmate bond was special, that it was possible to find love with someone who was not destined to be your love, but there was something magical about soulmates that just couldn’t be described.

None of that made sense to him, nor at four did he really care about love and other such crap. But he knew he needed to find his soulmate. It was like a pull in his chest, and in his mind; a quiet whisper of ‘please help me’ on the wind. Somehow, Spencer just knew his soulmate needed him, and this tattoo was how he found them.

But when he looked at the black ink on his arm, none of the letters he learned matched the pattern he saw. His teacher said letters made up words. If there were no letters in his tattoo, did that mean there were no words?

Did his tattoo get messed up somehow, maybe lost in translation? Did this mean Spencer would never find his soulmate?

Miserably, he asked his momma why his tattoo was just a bunch of lines and dots and arrows. She had no answer for him, but told him not to worry about it. His tattoo was perfectly normal, she said.

“But mom, my soulmate needs me now.”

She patted his head and said, “We don’t get to decide when we meet out soulmate honey, but I’m sure your soulmate is just fine.”

“But,” he protested, seconds away from throwing a full blown temper-tantrum.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” she said, and plied him with cookies to distract him.

His mother was totally full of crap, because he was older now and understood nothing, and in the eighth grade, when he suffered his first crush, everything just got more confusing. Terri Carrington was the beautiful red head who sat next to him in biology. She hit puberty early, and somehow got away with showing far more cleavage than any eighth grader should despite the Catholic school’s strict dress code.

While his momma taught him to always respect women, Spencer was 14 and curious, and could not stop himself from _occasionally_ glancing over to see her breasts resting on the desk as she leaned forward while Mr. Barr lectured on amoebas and cell walls and other boring stuff.

Unlike most people who kept their soulmate tattoos hidden to prevent the wrong person from saying the right words, Terri proudly displayed the neat column of Japanese kanji down the back of her forearm. These were not Spencer’s first words to her. Instead his first words were, “I’m in a band. My friend and I are gonna be rock stars one day.”

She smiled politely, said “cool,” before turning back to the board, even though Mr. Barr had yet to show up to teach class.

“Wanna go to the dance with me this Friday?”

“I’m saving myself for my soulmate,” she said, yet that did not stop her from sticking her tongue down Robbie Macker’s throat later that day, even though he was decidedly not Asian, nor did he know a lick of Japanese.

It would have been better if she’d just told him no.

“I can trip her with my cane for you,” Ryan said after school, as he counted the steps from the front door to their kitchen. Ryan grabbed two cans of Pepsi from the bottom shelf, did an exact 180, walked the three steps to the kitchen table, and sat in the chair always reserved for him. “Perks of being blind,” Ryan said, handing Spencer the second can. “No one ever thinks the blind kid did it on purpose.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay. I just hate when people use the soulmate thing as an excuse, you know.”

“She turned you down, huh?” his mother said, as she walked into the kitchen, settling several bags of groceries down on the counter. “Sorry, sweetie.”  

“She said it was because I wasn’t her soulmate. Her tattoo is a line of Japanese kanji,” he explained to his mother and Ryan. “But she kissed Robbie Mackers and he definitely doesn’t speak Japanese, so he can’t be her soulmate either.”

“You’re just upset because your tattoo is just a bunch of squiggles,” Jackie said, as she pranced into the room, and stole a bag of Doritos from the bag their mother just set down.

“It’s not a bunch of squiggles,” he argued, turning to glare at his sister. 

She just shrugged before handing the bag to Crystal who rolled her eyes and said, “fine, dots and squiggles.”

His mother held her hand palm up towards the twins, and raised an eyebrow. They reluctantly relinquished the bag of Doritos to her.

“No eating until supper, and leave your brother alone,” she said to them, shooing them out of the kitchen. “I know your tattoo is a bit unique, but I promise when you meet your soulmate, you will figure it out. It’ll all make sense then.”

Spencer thought his mother was still full of crap, until Ryan said, “Maybe you already have figured it out.”

“I have?” he said, snatching Ryan’s empty can of Pepsi, and placing it in the bag for recyclables. Ryan always had a hard time finding it.

“You said Terri’s tattoo is Japanese kanji, right? So, it stands to reason that the first words her soulmate will say to her are in Japanese. Maybe the first thing your soulmate says to you will be in a different language too.”

“A language made up of dots and arrows and squiggles?” he said, rolling his eyes because he knew Ryan couldn’t see it. His tattoo was a single black dot, followed by four vertical black dots squished together in a neat row with a dot on top that was slightly offset from the others and an arrow that curved and pointed in towards his arm. Following that weird ass symbol were five spread out dots almost in an arc, except the first one of the far left was too far below the others to complete an arc. There was an arrow curving in a circular clockwise direction superimposed over it. Below that, there five dots were squished together. The last symbol was two dots touching each other with two arrows that curved upwards on either side, like a smile. In other words, it made absolutely no sense, and he was pretty sure no language in the history of ever looked like that.

“You never know,” Ryan said with a shrug.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Oh, my baby. You’re only 14, you’ve got nothing to worry about yet,” his mother said, kissing his cheek before he could pull away.

“Ugh, mom, really?” Spencer said, rubbing the remnant of his mother’s kiss off his cheek. “Do you have to do that? And I’m not a baby.”

“I gave birth to you mister. You will always be my baby,” she said. When his mother caught Ryan snickering behind her, she ruffled Ryan’s hair and kissed his cheek as well. “And you, I may not have given birth to you, but I have the adoption papers that say you’re mine forever.”

Ryan offered a shy smile, his cheeks flushing like every time their mother reminded him he was just as much her child as Spencer, Jackie and Crystal. It always reminded Spencer how lucky he was to have his parents, and how grateful he was they adopted Ryan after the car accident that caused Ryan’s blindness and killed his mother, a direct result of his biological father’s drunk driving. His mother caught his fond smile, so Spencer stuck his tongue out of her.

“Keep doing that and your face will freeze that way,” she said. “Now go do your homework, both of you.”

On his way to the room he shared with Ryan, he tripped as he felt that tug at his chest again, like someone attached a long chain to his ribs and was pulling the chain from the other end. The desperate pleas for help died down somewhere around the time he turned six, but sometimes he still felt an ache in his chest or sobs echoing in his mind. The tug never quite went away, but sometimes it grew stronger like two magnets of opposite poles nearing each other. It’s how Spencer knew he did have a soulmate out there somewhere who was looking for him too.

He just wasn’t sure how he was going to find them with his messed up tattoo.

*

One week before senior prom, Mandi Patterson dumped him. They’d been dating for two years, and then one day she just stopped talking to him. She wouldn’t answer his phone calls, or his texts, and her mother said she wasn’t there when he stopped by the house. Finally, the day before prom, he found out why: Mandi Patterson found her soulmate and conveniently forgot to tell him.

“You understand, right?” she said, when he skipped fourth period calculus to track her down in the halls and finally get an answer. Of course Spencer understood, but that didn’t make him any less bitter.

It was too late to return the tickets, and he already had the tux, so he invited Ryan, who had nothing better to do since he decided to take a year off before college to wait for Spencer, or so he said (Spencer thought it was just because Ryan was too scared to go by himself). Ryan tried his hardest to make it fun, but Spencer still had a miserable time. They blew out of there early, Spencer suddenly grateful there was only a few weeks left of school, and a few months before he was out of this town completely, and on his way to UCLA with Ryan.

His soulmate was not having a good night either. He could feel that deep ache in his chest again, that some of the articles he read online told him meant his soulmate was sad or upset. He tried to send love back to his soulmate like his mother taught him how when he was four. Though at the time she was just humoring him, Spencer used the technique a lot. He hoped it actually worked.

“Did you boys have fun?” his mother asked, as he led Ryan into their home well before curfew.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. Spencer was an _awesome_ liar.

“Baby,” she said, snagging his arm to keep him from following Ryan out of the room. “I know you are upset about Mandi, but even if you don’t find your soulmate, there will be other girls out there.”

“Or boys,” he said, watching his mother’s expression carefully. He’d known since 9th grade when he caught himself watching sweat drip down the solid gold abs of Jerry Mantook, a senior and the captain of the football team at the time, that he might be bisexual. He knew Ryan was too, and while his older brother had told their parents who’d been nothing but proud of him, Spencer had not yet revealed his sexuality to anyone, but Ryan. It was kind of a moot point anyways, seeing as he’d never dated a guy before.  

“Or boys,” she said, accepting his revelation with little fanfare.

“It’s not that, not really,” he said, plopping down on the couch at his mother’s insistence. “It’s just, do you remember when I was four, and I told you my soulmate needed me?” he asked, waiting for his mother to nod before going on. “I wasn’t just saying that. I could _feel_ it, feel them asking for help. It’s not as bad as it was then, but sometimes I still feel an ache in my chest, or sometimes I wake up in the morning and somehow I just know they’re lonely. What if I never figure out what my tattoo means? What if I never find them and that ache never goes away?”

“Did you know not everyone can do that?” she said, resting a hand on his knee. “Not everyone has a bond that strong with their soulmate. They say that a bond like that means you and your soulmate have walked this Earth for many lives and found each other every single time. The universe _wants_ us to find our soulmates, baby, and every day little things are set into motion that lead you down the right path. You just have to stop trying so hard and let it happen. It’ll all make sense one day.”

It was just an old wives tale, what his mother said. There was no proof that reincarnation existed, or that he’d found his soulmate in a past life. Nor was there any proof it would all make sense one day.

Because not everyone had a soulmate. His great uncle was born without a tattoo. He died alone in a VA hospital after his liver finally gave out on him.

And for those who did have a soulmate, not everyone found theirs in a timely manner. Just the other day, he read a story about a 56 year old women who hadn’t found her soulmate early in life, so she married a man born without a soulmate tattoo, had three children, had a grandchild on the way, and then up and left her entire family when she found her soulmate on a Caribbean cruise for her 20th wedding anniversary.

Some never find their soulmate at all, like the 101 year old women the local news interviewed last year whose biggest regret was never finding her true love, or the women who lost her soulmate to a plane crash the day she met him.

He’d joined the online forums asking around about what his tattoo meant with no answers, and he’d checked all the languages known to man to see if his matched any of them without any luck.

If there was one thing this world had taught him, it was that happy endings were not for everyone.

*

College was a breath of fresh air, well, smog actually considering they were in Los Angeles. His mother cried, his father handed him and Ryan a pack of condoms each, and a pamphlet on the signs of alcohol poisoning and that was that.

He still shared a room with Ryan, but this time without the constant supervision of their parents. There were certain perks to Ryan being blind too, as the college gave them a room in the best dorm on campus, close to all their classes and dining halls and on the first floor, the kind of dorms usually only reserved for upper class men and women. ~~~~

His mother worried about them making friends considering they will be the only freshman in their dorms, but within weeks they both acquired new friends and new hobbies. Ryan joined a writing club, and Spencer joined the rowing team, and they both actually liked the classes they were taking. College life was pretty fucking awesome.

Then life changed for good the day Ryan met Jon in Psychology of Criminals 101, which Ryan took because he thought it might prove useful in his pursuit of a successful fiction writing career, and Jon took the class because he heard it was an easy A for satisfying the mandatory Arts & Humanities credits required even for art students.

During one class around mid-semester, Ryan heard the door squeak open twenty minutes after class started, and then someone’s flip-flops slapping against the tile floor. Whoever this person was, flopped down next to Ryan, his heavy bag hitting the floor with a _thud_ , and his zipper loud in the suddenly quiet room. He heard the shuffling of a notebook, and the click of a pen, then “Sorry,” the person said, presumably to the professor who continued to lecture after the disturbance.

Ryan’s first impression towards this faceless stranger was annoyance considering how much unnecessary noise this guy made that was now caught on his tape recording of the lecture. However, his impression immediately changed when, after class, the man said, “I uh, I was late to class today, as you probably heard, and I was wondering if I could borrow your tape recorder to get the notes I missed, but not like, take it, because you probably need it for other classes, but maybe we could listen to it together sometime, uh, if that’s okay?”

It always annoyed Ryan that his soulmate’s first words to him were one, long runon sentence filled with ‘uhs’ that spanned his entire back from shoulder to shoulder twice. It annoyed Ryan until now, that was. Now, it was positively adorable.

Ryan’s face curved into a slow smile, before he said, “I wouldn’t mind sharing my notes with you, uh…”

Ryan heard the man gasp, before he said, “Jon. Jon Walker. I always sit directly behind you in class, not that you could know that, but oh man, I was totally aiming for suave with that opening line, and I’m shutting up now,” he trailed off as Ryan began to laugh.

Thankfully, Ryan was much smoother, or so he told Spencer later, and much less nervous in the face of his soulmate. “Why don’t you walk me to my next class and I’m sure the two of us can figure something out.”

Which is how the two of them came to be french kissing in Ryan’s bed when Spencer returned to their dorm from his last class.

“Aren’t you supposed to put a sock on the door or something,” he grumbled, as the two broke apart upon his entrance.

Unlike Spencer, who was still a virgin, Ryan slept with Caitlyn Snaper in 12th grade after she took pity on his pathetic attempts to woe her. Apparently there was a guy named Travis whom Ryan slept with during the year he took off from school, but Spencer thinks Ryan was full of shit on that account. Still, Ryan could be rather charming, and Spencer thought he was gross looking for the sheer fact that Ryan was his brother, but he could see how other people might find him rather attractive. So, he wasn’t necessarily surprised that Ryan found someone else to have sex with.  That was until Ryan said, “Spencer, meet Jon Walker, my soulmate. Jon this is my brother, Spencer.”

Spencer was decidedly not jealous, as he took Jon’s proffered hand and said, “That’s awesome, guys. Congrats. It’s nice to meet you, Jon.”

“Likewise,” Jon said, before there was an incredibly long and awkward silence. Spencer kind of hated the sound of silence.

Ryan cleared his throat. “Spencer, don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

He gave Ryan his best put upon sigh before leaving the room as noisily as he could manage because he knew Ryan hated that.

Though he could have called any one of his new friends, he ate dinner alone, and he was totally not moping. He did some of his homework in the library, walked around the campus after dark, before finally making his way back to his dorm. Ryan and Jon were curled around each other and fast asleep, an utterly adorable sight. This time when that familiar ache cropped up in his chest, Spencer knew he was the reason why this time.

He felt a small tendril of hope, something warm and bright like the petals of a sunflower reaching for the sun.

He wondered if that was his soulmate.

*

The Spring semester of his freshman year of college brought more friends than Spencer could keep up with. Jon apparently, had a mild form of scoliosis that he sought treatment for at a rehab facility in high school, which was how he met William Beckett, who had lost his left leg below the knee to cancer. William, evidently, did not come without a Gabe, who had multiple sclerosis, but was currently in remission. William and Gabe were soulmates, and met playing in a wheelchair basketball league as teenagers. Spencer met them a couple of times during the first half of the semester, and deemed them both the craziest fuckers he’d ever come across in his short life. Considering their previous circumstances, he really couldn’t blame either for their enthusiasm for life.

William and Gabe also introduced them to Patrick, who’d lost the use of his left arm after the nerve got severed in an accident, and his soulmate Pete, who will ‘fuck you up if you so much as look as his soulmate wrong,’ as Gabe described him.  When he finally met Pete, he wasn’t sure how the eyeliner wearing dude managed to be so short and so terrifying, and yet the friendliest fucker he’d ever met all at the same time.

Ryan, in turn met Brendon in his script writing class, who was adorable as all fuck, according to absolutely everyone who’d ever met him, including Pete. Patrick was very protective of Brendon, according to Gabe, since they’d been best friends since they were kids.

“And Pete is very protective of Patrick,” Gabe went on, “so that means Brendon falls under Pete’s umbrella of protection and…”

“Let me guess,” Spencer said, “he’ll fuck you up if you so much as look at Brendon wrong?”

“He sure will,” Gabe said.

Spencer had yet to meet Brendon, or the Dallon, who was described to Spencer as tall and dorky, and the Dan, who was apparently super shy, but the nicest and smartest person you’d ever meet, that came along with him.  And that was just the short list of people in the new group Ryan, and consequentially Spencer, found themselves immersed in.

Spencer met most of the group – and got sucked into their crazy club, not that’s he’s complaining – the day he came home and found a large amalgamation of people stuffed into the sardine can of a dorm room he shared with Ryan.

“Spencer!” Gabe cheered, as Spencer tried to pry the door open, accidentally hitting Pete who was sitting on the floor against his dresser, Patrick leaning into his side. Somehow, Gabe, William, Jon and Ryan, who were definitely not small people, were all squished together onto Ryan’s bed, and a dude he did not recognize sat in Ryan’s desk chair. Another unrecognizable face commandeered Spencer’s own desk chair, though he offered to sit on the floor when he saw Spencer arrive, and a girl with short blue hair sat at that stranger’s feet, leaning against Spencer’s desk. There was yet another stranger in his bed, lying face down away from the door. He seemed fast asleep, but Spencer wasn’t sure how he could possibly sleep with all the noise coming from the room.

“Hey bro,” Ryan said. “Sorry about all the people.”

“We’re having the first ever Disability Club Thing meeting,” the guy in Ryan’s chair said. “Well, we’re still working on the name, but do you want to join?”

“Sure,” he told the dude, as he sat down on the edge of his bed, trying not to wake the stranger in it who was definitely fast asleep…and tiny.

“I’m Dallon,” the guy in Ryan’s chair said, offering his hand. “That’s Dan,” he said pointing to the guy in Spencer’s desk chair, “and that’s Brendon in your bed.”

“And I’m Halsey,” the girl said, giving him a two finger wave.

“Sorry Brendon fell asleep in your bed,” Ryan apologized. “I don’t think he meant too, but the first draft of our script was due today, and he didn’t start it until 10 last night.”

“It’s fine,” Spencer said with a shrug. “So, disability club, huh? Didn’t know we had one of those.” He thought he would have remembered seeing that club at their school’s club fair held on the quad the weekend before classes started. Ryan would have been the first new member to sign up. Ryan always had a stubborn, independent streak, and he was determined to do as much on his own as he possibly could despite his disability, which Spencer and the rest of their family 100 percent supported. He firmly believed everyone, no matter the disability, deserved the right to be treated equally, which was far too often not the case in their society.

“We do now,” William proudly said.

“It was Brendon’s idea,” Dan said, leaning back in Spencer’s chair to poke Brendon in the side until he started to stir.

“Someone tried to ‘assist’ Ryan to class today,” Jon said, “insisting Ryan needed help and trying to take his back pack.”

“I almost hit him with my cane,” Ryan said.  

“Ryan was going on this rant about stupid people–” Jon said.

“It was epic,” Gabe interrupted. 

“Very epic,” Jon agreed. “So B suggested we start an advocacy group. And I unfortunately introduced him to Bill, I mean fortunately,” Jon amended when William pinched him. “And as soon as B mentioned the idea to him, those two were off like a bat out of Hell. Which somehow ended up with all of us meeting in your guy’s room, I think because it was closest at the time?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Halsey said. “I mean, some people are just ignorant assholes, but other people just don’t know any better, and don’t realize we don’t need or want to be treated differently.”

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner,” Patrick said, staring fondly at Brendon, who Spencer realized with a start was now wide awake and staring at him with warm, brown eyes. He had the most beautiful smile Spencer had ever seen, not because of his perfectly straight white teeth, but because he smiled with his whole face, his eyes crinkling at the corners and smile wide. Spencer found himself grinning back in response.

Brendon pointed at him with his pointer finger, before tucking his thumb into his hand, and touching his chest with four straight fingers. Then he spread his fingers and moved them in a circular motion around his face, fingers touching near his chin, before drawing a smile over his lips with both pointer fingers. It was all done so quickly, it took a moment to register what Brendon was doing.

“I don’t think he knows sign language,” Dan said, signing as he spoke. 

“I know,” Brendon responded, with perfect articulation, but slightly louder than what would be considered normal.

“Can you read lips?” he asked Brendon directly, because he grew up with Ryan and wasn’t stupid. He waited for Brendon to nod, before offering his hand. “Spencer Smith, nice to meet you.”

“Sorry for falling asleep in your bed,” he said, not quite yelling as he shook Spencer’s hand.

A crumpled up piece of paper came flying across the room, hitting Brendon in the chest. “Put your hearing aids in,” Dallon said, signing as he spoke like Dan. “We have important club business to figure out.”

Brendon did as he was told, but ‘important business to figure out’ turned into the unofficial disability club talking for hours about possible plans and ideas for the club, often veering of course about people’s plans for the weekend, how classes were going and funny stories about their week, and ultimately ending with the club deciding nothing. Finally, Halsey said, “Alright, I’m fucking starving. Brendon, Patrick and I’ll go to the office tomorrow and petition to get us recognized as an official club on campus.” Brendon lit up at the mention of his name, and God, everyone was right, he really was adorable. “I’ll text everyone for our next meeting, where we can make flyers for our first official meeting and elect officers.”

“I call dibs on vice president!” Pete said, jumping to his feet and helping Patrick up by his good arm.

“Why vice president?” Patrick said, at the same time Halsey said, “That’s not how it works.”

“Because, everyone knows the VP doesn’t really do anything,” Pete said, “and this way,” he said to Patrick, “I can put on a suit, and you can call me Mr. Vice President and we can –”

“Too much information,” Dallon interrupted to everyone’s relief. Pete very maturely stuck his tongue out at him.

“If we’re calling dibs, I want to be the officer in charge of hazing new recruits,” Gabe said.

“And I’ll be the one in charge of saving them from Gabe,” Bill added.

“We’ll make sure to add that on our club application,” Halsey sarcastically said.

“Definitely,” Brendon added, winking at William and Gabe.

“See, Brendon’s on our side!” Gabe said.

“Dinner, now,” Halsey said, grabbing Brendon’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “Now who’s coming?”

There was a chorus of ‘me’ in response, as everyone shuffled out of his room.

“We should celebrate our new club, right Patrick?” Pete said. “Party at our place this weekend! Everyone’s invited.” The next thing Spencer knew, Pete’s hand was on his shoulder as the shorter dude looked up at him very seriously. “You like beer, right, Spence,” was not what he was expecting to hear.

“Don’t know,” Spencer said.

“Well, you’re going to learn this weekend, my young Padawan,” Pete said, which was how Spencer found himself officially inducted into the craziest, but greatest group of friends ever.

It was only once they pushed several tables together in the dining hall, with William and Gabe still arguing with Halsey about appropriate officer titles, Ryan resting his head on Jon’s shoulder as his soulmate fed him strawberries, Patrick glaring at Pete for trying the same thing, Brendon and Dallon laughing at whatever Dan was signing to them –apparently Brendon always turned his hearing aids off in the dining hall because of the noise – that Spencer realized the tug in his chest was gone.

It didn’t feel like a bad thing, but still, he wondered what that meant.

*

It was impossible after that not to run into at least one member of the ‘Our Club is More Awesome that Yours Disability Advocacy Club’ as Gabe liked to call it, though both Halsey and Patrick shot down the name to Gabe’s dismay. Halsey, whose real name turned out to be Ashley Spencer discovered the next day, was in his Tuesday and Thursday business accounting class. Now he had someone else to make fun of all the idiots in the class with. The always harried, future professor Dallon had class in the same building as him on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and, incidentally, class in the same building directly after, so they always walked together. Dan had work study in the dining hall Spencer liked to frequent, and spent most of his shift pretending to clean tables and sweep while really talking to Spencer instead. It was how he found out Dan was literally a genius, but decided to skip only two grades because he didn’t feel ready to skip more. He was studying to be an engineer, and according to Dallon, taught himself sign language in a week after he found he out his fellow suitemate, aka Brendon, was deaf.  

Pete came into his life at odds moments always as a blur of color and motion and touch, whether it was a hug or a hand on his shoulder or arm. Pete was very rarely ever without Patrick, and was often accompanied by a stoner with awesome hair by the name of Joe, and a heavy muscular man with amazing tats by the name of Andy. Pete treated everyone he met like family, and Spencer liked being a part of it. When he managed to drag himself to the gym one morning, to find Patrick on one of the treadmills, his bad arm strapped to his chest, Patrick become his new workout buddy and they got together to work out as often as they could.

Every week, Spencer also attended meetings with this awesome group of people at the now official club meetings, which always started with plans to do stuff, delineated to everyone just talking about random stuff, and ending with Halsey, Patrick and Brendon making actual plans and getting shit done, which was how Patrick got elected President and Halsey and Brendon co-VP, despite Pete’s whining and sexual innuendos, who immediately shut up when Patrick gave him ‘the look.’ They all tried to eat dinner together as often as they could, too.

The first time Spencer met _Brendon_ outside of club meetings was in line at Star Bucks when he just happened to slide behind Brendon in their mutual wait for coffee. He tapped Brendon on the shoulder, who immediately lit up like he did every time he ran into a friend and delved in for a hug. “Is everything official with the club now?” Spencer asked, knowing Halsey, Patrick, and Brendon had run into a little bit of a problem getting things settled with administration.

“We are all good to go,” Brendon said, bouncing on his feet a little. “The ‘Our Club is More Awesome than Yours Disability Advocacy Club’ is a go.”

“It’s not actually called that, is it?” Spencer said, making a face of disbelief.

“No, but it makes Gabe and William happy when I do.”

The tug in his heart may have been gone, never having returned, but Spencer suddenly felt a warmth tickling at his limbs, like he was holding them too close to a fire.

“Hey, we should exchange phone numbers,” Brendon said, before Spencer could embarrass himself saying something sappy and lame. “I prefer texting, though. I can’t always hear very well when people talk into the phone,” he said, handing Spencer his number, but refusing to meet his eyes.

“Well that works out great, cuz I kind of hate talking on the phone. It always ends up so awkward.” _Why,_ he thought, _why do I have to be so lame?_ It didn’t seem to bother Brendon, thank God, who just offered another smile and said, ‘hope to see you around.’

The next time Spencer saw Brendon outside of club meetings, he was hiding behind one of the god awful abstract sculptures of something or other on the Quad, a camera in his hand, the little red light on it indicating he was filming something.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, crouching down behind the statue next to Brendon who was lying on him stomach, the small camcorder pointed in the direction of a group of barefoot men in skimpy black dresses.

“I’m trying to make a documentary for my film class on what really happens during rush week.”

“Why don’t you rush and find out? You can always just quit at any time.”

“Ha! No,” Brendon said, keeping his eyes trained on the rushers. “People like that are not nice to people like me.”

“People like you?”

“Yeah, the artsy type and, you know, disabled. I got the shit kicked out of me enough in high school.”

“Well fuck them,” Spencer vehemently said, suddenly feeling angry. “I think you’re awesome.”

Brendon took his eyes off the rushers to meet Spencer’s. “Why thank you Spencer Smith,” he said. “Oh, they’re on the move. Gotta follow. Come with? In case I get spotted and they try to beat me up, or worse steal my camera or hearing aids.”

Spencer had two classes to get to, and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast four hours ago. But of course, instead of saying no, he said, “Well, I’m not much of a knight in shining armor, but I can certainly distract them long enough for you to get away.”

He loved the way Brendon’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, Spencer realized, and the way his brown eyes seemed a shade lighter. It sent his heart racing, fingers tingling with that unidentifiable warmth.

“Psh, like I’d ever leave you behind to fend for yourself.”

As the rushers ran through public in their horrible outfits, Spencer and Brendon hid behind buildings and trees and bushes, laughing at the idiots who willingly put themselves through this just to join some dumb frat. They did, in fact, get spotted following the group. Brendon pretended to film some birds, while the belligerent frat leaders confronted them, and Spencer spun some bullshit story about how they were filming a documentary on the migratory pattern of birds.

When one of the frat boys started yelling at Brendon, demanding to see what was on the videotape, Spencer started fake signing to Brendon, loudly explaining to the group that Brendon was deaf, and then asking the guy demanding Brendon’s camera, “What kind of sick bastard yells at a deaf dude,” loud enough to draw the attention of the other people around them. The spectators looked angrily at the frat guys seemingly accosting a disabled man, and Spencer stepped protectively in front of Brendon to sell the bit even further.

He used to pull that crap all the time with Ryan, exploiting Ryan’s disability to get away with far more than they should have as teens. Spencer, by now, was a seasoned expert in that particular con.

The frat and rushers, realizing they’d drawn the ire of the onlookers, backed off, but banned them from ever coming to one of their parties. Like that really mattered to Brendon and Spencer.

“I thought you said you weren’t a knight in shining armor,” Brendon said when they were alone again.

“That was more a Jack Of All Trades then knight kind of thing,” Spencer said, “or more accurately, teenagers doing illegal or frowned upon things and using Ryan’s blindness to get out of it.”

“You surprise me, Spencer Smith. I like it,” he said, as they parted ways at Brendon’s dorm, Spencer watching his perfectly round ass as he walked away. His heart skipped a beat.

He’d call it falling in love, but Spencer refused to fall in love with someone who wasn’t his soulmate ever again. It never ended well.

*

Spencer secretly learned sign language from Dan. Dallon, despite aspirations to become a professor, was terrible at teaching anyone anything, and Patrick, having the use of only one arm, couldn’t show him all the signs. Spencer was a visual learner, he needed to see it to learn it, so Dan really was his only choice. Not that Dan was a bad choice, he was just so busy usually that he generally didn’t have much free time, so he taught Spencer sign during his shift at the dining hall. It was slow going, and he didn’t want to show off his new skills to Brendon until he was sure he could at least hold a conversation.

After the incident with the frat, Brendon constantly texted him, and they often talked to each other at club meetings. Brendon treated Spencer like he was his best friend, however, Spencer learned pretty quickly, that was how Brendon treated every single one of his friends. Still, he was quite surprised when he got a phone call one day, Brendon’s name flashing across the screen. Brendon rarely called people, even his own family, because of the difficulty he had hearing people over the phone, and how embarrassed, Patrick explained, being unable to hear made him.

“Spencer, I need a favor,” Brendon said over the phone before Spence could say anything. 

“What can I do for you?” he said, talking louder than he normally would and carefully enunciating his words to make sure Brendon could hear him. A few other people on the Quad looked at him funny, but fuck them.

“I’m supposed to get lunch with Dallon and Breezy this afternoon at that pizza place on Hampton,” he said.

“Breezy’s his soulmate right?” he asked, remembering the brief conversation he had with Brendon in the library the other day.

“Yeah, they’re having their first date today, and Dallon’s too chicken shit to go by himself. Dan was supposed to come with us, but now he can’t, and Dallon won’t let me back out of this. But I do not want to be alone with two recently united soulmates. I’m just gonna wait until they start making out, and then sneak out, but please come with me. I need back up. Please, please, please.”

Spencer knew very well what it was like to be the odd man out next to two soulmates who just met – Ryan and Jon were _still_ in the honeymoon phase – so he agreed to meet Brendon and Dallon at their dorm. He told himself it had absolutely nothing to do with how hot Brendon was, or how much he wanted to kiss him. Dating someone who wasn’t his soulmate never turned out well for him, and he wasn’t about to get his heart broken again. So he willed his dick to calm down and shut the fuck up, as he walked to the pizza parlor with Dallon and B.

 “I didn’t know Dallon knew how to sign until he started yelling –” Brendon was explaining, as they crept closer to the pizza parlor.

“Lecturing, I was lecturing,” Dallon insisted.

“Fine, _lecturing_ me about leaving my dirty clothes everywhere, so I took out my hearing aids to ignore him, and he started _lecturing_ me in sign language,” Brendon said, laughing at the memory.

“You should have seen his face,” Dallon said. “I thought he was going to shit a brick.”

“I bet that was hilarious,” Spencer said. “How _do_ you know sign language?”

“Both my mom and sister are deaf,” Dallon explained. “It’s genetic, runs in the family. When I was real young, my father hadn’t bothered to learn any sign language yet, so my mom used to take out her hearing aids all the time whenever the two of them fought. It used to infuriate my father. I learned from his mistakes and made sure my mother taught me when I was young so neither her or my sister could do that to me.”

“See, in my family, I got away with it all the time because I’m the only one who’s deaf, and my mom only knew a few signs when they first took me in as a foster. Even now, my siblings only know a few sentences in sign, so it was easy as a kid to just pop out my hearing aids and tune them out,” Brendon said.

“Their loss,” Dallon said. “It’s so much more fun and stress-relieving to yell in sign.”

“Ha!” Brendon said, surprising everyone as he launched himself onto Dallon’s back. Dallon staggered but managed to accept Brendon’s weight, latching his hands onto Brendon’s thighs to keep him steady. “I knew it. You _were_ yelling, and not ‘lecturing,’” he said, putting air quotes around the last word.

Dallon just rolled his eyes as he set Brendon down and opened the door to the parlor for them.  Once inside, however, Dallon made a beeline towards Breezy, sitting on the other side of the small diner.

It was terribly awkward at first. Spencer didn’t really know any of them that well yet, and Breezy and Dallon just found each other, so they were in that soulmate phase where they were so completely wrapped up in one another, they forget the rest of the world existed, including the waiter who came to take their drink order. Brendon ordered water for them because they couldn’t even separate their lips long enough to do so themselves. Brendon just smiled fondly and shook his head as he looked over the menu.

Spencer floundered. He couldn’t _stand_ silence. Desperately, he searched for something to say, going over what little he knows of Brendon and replaying their previous conversation in his head trying to find a conversation starter. Regrettably, he settled on, “So, you’re adopted?”

Brendon hunched his shoulders, the smile sliding from his face. “Yeah,” he said, the topic clearly not up for discussion.

“Sorry,” Spencer said, glancing over at Breezy and Dallon, trying to use the power of his mind to make them stop sucking face long enough to join the conversation and save Spencer from his awkwardness.

“No,” Brendon said. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I just, I just don’t like to talk about it?”

Spencer nodded in understanding. He had plenty of things in his life he didn’t want to talk about either. “So, I saw on Facebook your birthday is coming up. Any plans?” he asked, internally cringing, hoping that didn’t make him sound like too much of a stalker.

“Not really,” Brendon said with a shrug, staring back down at his glass.

“What do you mean ‘not really?’” Dallon chose that moment to stop snogging his girlfriend and rejoin the land of the loveless. “We’re having a party at Pete, Patrick, Joe and Andy’s, remember?”

“I thought that was a joke,” Brendon said, eyeing Dallon like he was a wild alligator poised for the attack.

“Don’t let Patrick hear you say that,” Dallon said. “He already bought the decorations, ordered the cake, and sent out invitations on Facebook.”

“Plus Pete’s already got a keg,” Breezy said, snapping her compact shut after fixing her lipstick. “But,” she added giving Dallon a pointed look. “We weren’t supposed to tell Brendon. It was going to be a surprise party.”

Brendon raised an eyebrow at Dallon, as the other freshman opened his mouth to reply, shut it with a click, and then just said, “Patrick’s going to kill me.”

“They didn’t have to throw me a party,” Brendon said, playing with the straw in his drink.

“Oh, please, Fall Out Boy love you,” Breezy said. “Plus they never pass up a chance to throw an extravagant party. They threw a party two nights ago because Joe got new weed.”

“Fall Out Boy?” Spencer asked, because being new to the group, it was hard to keep up sometimes with other people’s inside references.

“It’s what Pete, Patrick, Andy and Joe call themselves,” Dallon explained.

“They’re in a ‘band,’” Breezy said, rolling her eyes, “a band that may play instruments, but doesn’t make any music or play any songs in front of other people.” 

“I think they’re playing at B’s surprise party this Saturday,” Dallon unhelpfully added.

“Yeah, we’ve heard that one before,” Breezy said. “Anyways, you should come,” she said to Spencer. “Fall Out Boy always throws frequent, but awesome parties.”

“I already planned on going with Ryan,” Spencer said. In fact, Ryan’s exact words on the matter were, _“You’re taking me to Brendon’s surprise birthday party in three weeks. Oh, and we’re in charge of getting the gift. Everyone’s already given me some money for it, though I don’t know how much it is. Whoever, put the blind guy in charge of collecting money is clearly an idiot or a genius. Patrick said we’d know what to get him.”_

 _“He said you’d know what to get him?”_ Spencer said. Ryan was notorious for being an awful gift giver, and it wasn’t just because he was blind. 

_“Well, no, he said_ you _specifically already knew what to get him.”_

 _“That was a bit presumptuous of him,”_ he said. However, Spencer did in fact know the perfect gift for Brendon. It was just a matter of if they could afford it, and if he had time to get in contact with the right people and get any responses.

Reminded of his blunder, Dallon frowned and emitted a pitiful groan. “You have to act surprised,” he said, latching both of his hands onto the one Brendon had on the table. “Patrick really will kill me if he thinks I ruined the surprise.”

“I’m a terrible actor, you know this,” Brendon said. “But I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. Patrick couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“But Pete could, and he totally would beat me up for Patrick. Pete shanked a guy in an alley once to defend his soulmate,” Dallon said, subconsciously tightening his grip on Brendon’s hand until his knuckles turned white. “I heard him say that.”

“That was a joke,” Brendon laughed, prying Dallon’s fingers from his hand. “I’m pretty sure Pete never shanked anyone. I think,” he said, watching Dallon’s face pale at the last sentence. “But I will do my best to act surprised, just for you my platonic soulmate.”

“Ooh, I could get behind that,” Breezy said, winking at Brendon. “Wanna do a threesome?”

“Sure,” Brendon said at the same time Dallon says, “Absolutely not,” to everyone’s amusement.

It hit him, as he watched Brendon and Breezy laugh at Dallon, that the hollow feeling in his chest, like he was missing a piece of himself was gone.

He wondered what that meant.

*

They were not allowed to have noisemakers, nor were they allowed to shout ‘surprise’ when Brendon walked through the door, Patrick very clearly explained. Too much noise caused feedback on his hearing aids, and Patrick did not want to start Brendon’s surprise birthday party with him cringing in pain or blowing out his hearing aids. Patrick instructed them all to very quietly say, whisper even, ‘Surprise’ and make some random flailing motion, which he demonstrated by doing a jazz hand with his good arm.

In the end, it didn’t matter, because Dallon already ruined the surprise, so Brendon turned off his hearing aids right before walking in the door.

Brendon wasn’t lying. He really was a terrible actor. If the fake gasp, and the ‘wow, guys thanks,’ wasn’t a dead giveaway that he knew, then the fact that he missed whatever Patrick said to him next because Brendon couldn’t read his lips in the dim lighting certainly did.

“Dallon told you, didn’t he?” Patrick said, crossing his arms, after Brendon turned his hearing aids back on.

“It was an accident,” Dallon insisted, hiding his tall frame behind Brendon. “Don’t let Pete shank me.”

“I’m not going to shank you,” Pete said, taking a step forward. “I’m going to properly stab you, and use your body as fertilizer to grow more weed.”

“We’ve got beer!” Joe announced, drawing Pete and Patrick’s ire away from Dallon, as everyone, including Joe, watched Andy drag in a keg by himself. “And weed,” Joe added, holding up a gallon zip lock bag.

 “And cake,” Jon said.  

“Since the beer is here, and Spencer’s awesome gift makes up for your lack of discrepancy, you are forgiven,” Patrick said to Dallon, but he still nodded at Pete who punched Dallon in the arm. Spencer had no clue why Patrick thought his gift would be so awesome. Spencer never told him what he picked out.

Spencer was no stranger to alcohol, but that did not mean he had a whole lot of experience either. By the time the party was in full swing, he was pleasantly buzzed, no wait, he was drunk, definitely drunk. Halsey, who said fuck you to her diabetes and did a keg stand, was way more drunk that he was and just stood on top of the table, declared not enough vaginas at the party, put a wig on Dan and told him to act like a girl, before calling all her closest girl friends. In comparison, Spencer felt he was doing pretty okay.

He attempted to catch Brendon as the night progressed, maybe to ask for a dance – Fall Out Boy did not in fact play, but got a friend to DJ – but he did not catch much more than a glimpse as everyone wanted a piece of the birthday boy, until it was time for presents.

“Present time!” Gabe declared, holding up William who was far too drunk for his crutches.

“It’s awesome, you’re gonna love it,” William said, though he didn’t actually know what Spencer picked out for Brendon either. No one else knew, but Ryan and Jon.

Brendon had taken out his hearing aids because the bass from the amps was driving him crazy, so someone tapped his shoulder to get his attention and maneuvered his drunk ass until he was facing Spencer as the DJ stopped playing music.

“We got a present for you,” Patrick signed and said at the same time.

“You guys didn’t have to,” he yelled. Dallon got Brendon’s attention and pointed to his ears, prompting Brendon to say, “Oh, shit sorry. Let me just…”

Spencer stopped him with a light touch to Brendon’s hand, before he held both of his hands, palm up, off to the side and wiggled his fingers, the sign for ‘wait.’

“I learned some sign,” he said and signed at the same time. All those lessons with Dan were worth it for the way Brendon’s eyes turned a bit misty. Patrick nodded his approval off to the side where Brendon couldn’t see him. He wasn’t adept at sign yet, though, therefore he did not attempt a grand speech. He simply held both hands palm up, and makes a horizontal circular motion with both. _Here,_ his hands said, as he took an envelope with several pictures, VIP passes, and a rental agreement out of his jacket pocket.

Pete looked vaguely disapproving of his gift, but Patrick elbowed him in the gut.

Brendon looked over the pictures, and the VIP passes, and read the rental agreement. “Is this what I think it is?” he asked, his eyes definitely wet.

“I don’t know how to sign an answer to that,” Spencer said.

“What is it?” Dallon said. “I can translate.”

“It’s a studio, that is, Jon and I rented that space he wanted to use for the documentary he’s working on. I know you didn’t have any luck getting ahold of the bands on your list either, but we found someone who knows someone, who knows someone …anyways, they got two of the bands to agree to do the documentary and let you go on tour with them for a few weeks this summer. One of the bands also sent VIP passes for the festival they’re doing here, so you and a guest can film behind the scenes.”

“Spencer, that’s pretty fucking awesome,” Pete said, taking the rental agreement from Brendon’s hand, who’s gripping it so tightly the paper is starting to tear along the edges. Patrick was beyond smug.

Brendon tore his eyes away from the VIP passes and the pictures of the two bands who agreed to do the documentary to meet Spencer’s.

“We also got some lighting supplies and stuff for the studio, well Jon mostly picked all that stuff out,” he said, trying not to blush as everyone, but Ryan and Jon gapped at him.

“Spencer, I don’t—” Brendon started, before he gave up, and launched himself at Spencer, hugging him tightly around the waist. Spencer’s heart leapt to his throat, and he gasped at the flames that licked his skin wherever Brendon’s skin touched his. “Thank you,” Brendon mouthed into his ear. Spencer squeezed him tighter in response.

Spencer reluctantly let go when Pete started waving his hands to get Brendon’s attention. “You better put Fall Out Boy in your documentary,” he said. “We are family after all.”

“I will if you guys ever actually play a show,” Brendon laughed, pulling Pete into a hug, and demanding to hug everyone else after in thanks.

“I knew you’d pick out the perfect gift,” Patrick said.

“How? How did you know?”

“Call it a feeling,” Patrick said, with a wave of his hand, bounding away.  

Brendon came bouncing back over to him, demanding a second hug from ‘the greatest person every, seriously.’ This time, when they pulled away from the hug, Brendon’s body heat still clinging to his chest, the light reflecting in his eyes and giving his face a soft glow, his plush lips were a mere centimeter away from Spencer’s.

He hesitated just a moment too long, and the moment slipped between his fingers like sand.

It was probably better that way.

*

Patrick was the greatest workout buddy ever. On most days, he motivated Spencer to get his ass up before classes and go for a run with him, or go to the gym after classes. “If I can do it with one arm,” Patrick liked to say, “you can most certainly do it with two.”

And yeah, Spencer really had no good argument against that.

On the plus side, well, more on the plus side, Patrick, having known Brendon for a long time, was a great source of information on the man Spencer refused to admit he may have had some feelings for.

“You seem to know a lot about running,” Spencer said, after Patrick gave him tips on proper breathing one morning while jogging. Patrick could easily leave him in the dust if he wanted to. “What got you into all of this?” he asked.

“I got made fun of a lot in high school for being chubby,” Patrick admitted. “For a while, Brendon was my only friend. But getting picked on encouraged me to get healthy, and prove to people that I could do it with only one arm, even though everyone said I couldn’t.”

“You’re a pretty awesome person, Patrick,” Spencer said, watching red smear across Patrick’s face that had nothing to do with the exertion of running. “So, you went to high school with B?” Spence asked, before Patrick could humbly deny his awesomeness.

“No, we met when I was 8 and B was 6 at a ‘special’ school for kids with disabilities. We were both there because at the time we were so far behind the other kids our own age academically. It had nothing to do with our disabilities, though. I was behind because I spent so much time in the hospital after the accident that I missed almost a year of school. And B well, he kind of got dealt a shit hand in life at first, and then his social worker and first foster parents were complete idiots who couldn’t figure out he was deaf. You know how they finally found out?” Patrick said, as they jogged in place waiting for the light to change, and the little flashing man to tell them it was safe to cross the street. “Me. Little chubby me trying to explain to a bunch of dumb adults that no, Brendon was not ignoring them or being difficult, he couldn’t _hear_ them.”

“It was lucky B met you then. Who knows how long he could have went before someone else realized it.”

“Yeah, you should have seen his face when he realized he could communicate with people again after they got him hearing aids and started teaching him sign language. _I_ almost started crying. The first person he wanted to talk to was me, to thank me, though he really didn’t have to. We’ve been best friends ever since. Even after my parents moved me to Chicago, we still stayed friends. He helped me through a lot of rough patches in my life. But he didn’t have it easy in high school either.”

He remembered the conversation he had with Brendon when he was filming the rushers, how worried he was of getting caught and beat up or having his hearing aids stolen. He wondered how many times that actually happened to him. “People can be so cruel,” Spencer said. He’d had his fair share of experience dealing with pricks who liked to pick on his brother in middle and high school just because he was blind.

Patrick quietly agreed before saying, “You wanna jog to the smoothie place B works at and get breakfast? I can have Pete come pick us up after so we don’t have to jog all the way back to campus?”

“Sounds good. Lead the way, my fair gentleman,” Spencer said with a little bow, startling a laugh from Patrick. 

It was only later, as he was lying in his bed that night that it came to him.

“Is Patrick trying to set me up with Brendon?” he asked Ryan, hoping his brother was not asleep yet.

His brother grumbled in response.

“Wait,” Spencer said, remembering the other day when he was at lunch with Dallon, Brendon and Dan, and both Dan and Dallon suddenly had somewhere else to be, or the dozens of times Jon or Ryan texted him that they were hanging out with Brendon and he should come join them. “Are all of you trying to set me up with Brendon?”

“Maybe?” Ryan posited.

“You’re all assholes.”

“Why, because we want to see the two of you happy? Because we think you two are made for each other?” Ryan asked, a bite to his words.

“But we’re not, are we?” He wasn’t bitter, totally not. And maybe that small voice in his head screamed _I really wish Brendon was my soulmate,_ but he’d know if he was, right?

“How do you know he’s not?” Ryan retaliated. “You don’t actually know what your tattoo means.”

“What about Brendon?” Spencer argued. “I think he would have said something by now if he knew.”

“Not necessarily,” Ryan said after a moment’s hesitation.

“What does that mean?”

“It means his tattoo is something a lot of people say to him, and he’s been burned before, and that’s all I’m saying. You should really talk to Brendon if you want more information.”

Spencer resisted that urge to say ‘whatever,’ because he was 19, and not 9, but he couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

“All I’m saying, what all of us are trying to say, is that you two should give it a chance.”

“Maybe,” he said, but knew he probably wouldn’t. Spencer was not opening up his heart only for it to get broken again, nor was he willing to break Brendon’s heart if, by some miracle, Spencer found his soulmate.

*

“So, you’re coming to my rowing match this weekend, right?” Spencer asked to the general amalgamation of people that always seemed to be in his room. Jon was sitting on Ryan’s bed, pretending to read, but was really staring down at Ryan who was using his lap as a pillow, playing with his soulmate’s hair. Brendon was on the floor on his stomach working on homework, stating their room was quieter than the library (though no one bothered to call him out on that), and Halsey was lying in Spencer’s bed next to him citing she was too lazy to walk back to her own dorm in between her two Wednesday classes (which were six hours apart), and their dorm was so conveniently close. It was an excuse often used by all the members of the Disability Advocacy Club to hang out in their room.

“Yes, Spencer, we’ve only said yes the 500 other times you’ve asked this week,” his brother said. “Though I don’t know why I have to go, because I can’t actually see you.”

“Well, your annoying voice certainly isn’t broken,” Spencer retaliated. He felt the bed shake with Halsey’s laughter. “And Jon can tell you when to cheer. You’re my brother, you have to go and support me.”

“You two are totally brothers,” Halsey said.

“Shut up,” Ryan responded at the same time Spencer said, “He’s adopted,” prompting Halsey to laugh harder.

His brother stole the pen near his head out of Jon’s hands, and threw it at him. It came nowhere near close, and landed on Brendon’s back instead.

“Did I miss something important again?” Brendon asked, looking up from the textbook he was highlighting. Even when his hearing aids were on, Brendon tended to tune out of the rest of the world when he was studying.

“Just Ryan being a jerk again,” Spencer said, snagging the pen that was still on Brendon’s back and throwing it at his brother. Jon, ever the faithful soulmate, caught it before it could hit Ryan in the face.

“You would say that, he’s your brother,” Brendon said, which sent Halsey into another fit of giggles.

“Are you coming to my race this Saturday too?” Spencer asked, ignoring Brendon’s comment. Brothers were supposed to pick on each other. It’s just how the world worked.

“Of course,” Brendon said. “Wouldn’t miss it. Pete already offered to drive me and Patrick.”

“Pete and Patrick are coming too?”

“Sure,” Brendon said, giving him a funny look. “Everyone is.”

Everyone turned out to be literally everyone.

Even Spencer admitted he was damn good at rowing. He’d picked it up quickly, and had been promoted to second boat – in other words the second best boat on the team – within months of joining the team. Spencer was proud of his accomplishments, and all he wanted was for someone he cared about to attend at least one of his races to cheer him on. The other races were all too far away, and this was the only one this season within reasonable distance of the campus. He did not expect, however, the entire Disability Advocacy Club to show up, plus Andy and Joe, and some friends Halsey brought. They even made him a banner that said ‘Go Spencer!’ in dark blue and covered in glitter that Pete and Brendon held up between them. It was awesome, and Spencer loved his friends.

Spencer and the rest of the members of his boat, also pumped up by the presence of their friends, beat their previous record by five seconds, and came in 6th place. It was their best showing all season.

“Good job, bro,” Ryan said, giving him a hug after Jon maneuvered him in the right direction. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Spencer said, “and thanks for coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ryan said. 

“Congratulations, Spencer!” Brendon said, bounding over to them. Spencer just barely had enough to time to get his arms up to catch Brendon after the smaller teen flung himself into Spencer’s arms.

“Good job,” Patrick said, clapping him on the back, after Spencer set Brendon back down on the ground.

“You know what this means,” Pete said with a glint in his eye, as he wrapped an arm around Patrick’s shoulder and kissed his soulmate’s cheek.

“No, don’t say it,” Dallon said.

“Okay, I won’t,” Pete said.

So Joe finished for him, “Party at our place! Everyone’s invited,” he said to the entire rowing team. A cheer rose up among his team.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” his coach said.

Spencer woke up the next morning in a pile of limbs, Ryan’s elbow in his face, Jon’s knee resting on his thigh, and Brendon’s warm body nestled against his other side, arm thrown around Spencer’s waist. On further inspection, Spencer realized neither he nor Brendon were wearing shirts, Jon had one shoe on, and his button down shirt was completely undone with no shirt underneath. Ryan wasn’t wearing any pants.

The four of them were on the floor of Fall Out Boy’s living room, Halsey planted face first into the couch above them in just her bra and underwear. Patrick’s fedora was on Dan’s head, who was curled up on the other end of the couch, Halsey’s legs draped over him. Joe was sitting on the floor near the end of the couch, head resting on the arm with Andy’s head in his lap. A shirtless Pete was lying on the floor just beyond Ryan, the big spoon to Patrick’s little spoon, and one hand down the front of Patrick’s boxers, who was also pants-less. Gabe was butt naked, which was way more of him than Spencer ever wanted to see, but at least Bill’s leg, thrown over Gabe’s waist, was hiding his junk from view.

His mouth felt like someone stuffed a washcloth in it, and his head felt like someone took his calculus textbook and repeatedly smashed him over the head with it.

“What the actual fuck?” he asked when Dallon walked into the room with a glass of water, bright eyed and looking nowhere near as well fucked as everyone else. With a start, he realized he could not remember anything past the point when Joe brought out the weed. “Sweet Jesus, did we have an orgy last night?”

“I don’t think so?” Dallon said with a shrug. “I went upstairs and crashed with Breezy in Pete and Patrick’s bed about the time Pete started molesting Patrick’s mouth and Patrick let him.”

“Why is everyone else so…” he said, making a vague sort of gesture to encompass the nakedness of the room.  

“William suggested strip poker when you were all baked off your asses,” Dallon explained.

“And we all thought that was a good idea?” Spencer asked.

“Apparently. At one point, Pete kissed Ryan, just a peck really, but both Jon and Patrick thought it was hot, so those two full on made out, tongue and all. Which, of course, turned into Gabe suggesting a group make out session.”

“Oh, fuck. Did we?” Spencer asked.

“Oh yeah, everybody was getting up all into that,” Dallon said.

“It was hot,” Halsey said. “I made out with a bunch of gay guys. Crossing that off my bucket list.”

“Hey, not all of us are gay,” Dan grumbled, shifting Halsey’s legs so her toes weren’t poking him in the crotch anymore.

“Even better,” Halsey said.

“Did I make out with Brendon,” he asked, peering down at the mop of brown hair nestled on his chest.

“I can’t really say,” Dallon suspiciously answered. “There was a lot going on at the time, and I left kind of early.”

“Oh, God,” Spencer groaned, “please don’t tell me I made out with my own brother. I’d have to vomit, and go drink bleach.”

“Okay,” Dallon replied. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t _think_ anyone had sex in here last night.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Spencer said.

“Why is Gabe naked?” Dan, who was now hugging Halsey’s legs to his chest like a teddy bear, asked.

“Joe dared him to go streaking.”

“And he did?” Spencer asked.

“Of course he did. This is Gabe we’re talking about,” Dallon said.  

There was a loud snort and a thump from Joe, Andy’s head slipping from his lap as Joe jerked awake, limbs flailing.

“Holy fuck,” Joe said, rubbing his head before glancing around the room. _“Fuck,_ ” he reiterated when he noticed the same nakedness and disarray of the room Spence noticed just moments before.

“What was _in_ that weed you gave everyone?” Dallon asked.

Joe looked confused for a moment before he said, “Oh shit, I think I might have mixed up the drugs and gave everyone the super strong stuff.”

“No shit,” Spencer mumbled, willing his morning boner to go down. Brendon’s hand was very, very close to his dick. He tried to maneuver Brendon’s hand away from his private parts, which was of course when Brendon groaned and stirred, his hand accidentally brushing over Spencer’s dick as he pulled away to rub his face.

“I am never smoking pot again,” Brendon said, then jerked away from Spencer a little when he realized they were cuddling shirtless. “What the fuck happened?” Brendon asked, taking in the evidence of the wild night neither could remember.

“I have no fucking clue,” Spencer said, Brendon’s eyes trained on his lips. He wondered if Brendon even knew what happened to his hearing aids.

“Joe roofied you,” Dallon said.

“It wasn’t roofies,” Joe argued. “At least, I don’t think they were roofies. Peyote maybe?”

“It was a team bonding exercise,” someone said, as a head appeared over the back of the couch. He recognized the person as Tyler from the rowing team, who at the moment looked as about as put together as everyone else. His shirt was ripped a little at the collar and hanging off his left shoulder, and there was a massive hickey on his neck.

“That we will never speak of ever again,” a second strange voice said, a mop of messy dyed red hair appearing over the top of the couch. He was not on the rowing team, but Spencer knew Josh’s – Tyler’s soulmate – hair from anywhere.

“Agreed,” Spencer said.

Brendon looked at him in confusion, so he translated as best as he could for him in sign. “Definitely,” Brendon agreed, “now where the fuck are my hearing aids?”  

Spencer watched Brendon dig through his back pack with his lip caught between his teeth. He really wished he could remember what it was like to kiss though lips.

*

“I really hope we didn’t make out,” Ryan said two days later as they walked back to their dorm together after dinner. For once, it was just the two of them. He thought everyone might have been avoiding each other a little after the strip poker and group make out session that no one can actually remember thanks to Joe. He knew everyone would get over it by club meeting the next day, and they’d be right back to living in each other’s pockets. Right now, they just needed some space from one another. Spencer hated how much he missed Brendon’s constant presence, though. “Kissing you would be like kissing our grandmother.”

Spencer sighed, rubbing his chest where it hurt for some odd reason. “Will you shut up about it already?” Spencer snapped. “We agreed not to talk about it anymore.”

“Jesus, someone’s in a bad mood. What crawled up your ass and died?”

“You,” he said, and then watched Ryan stumble over a crack in the cement. He knew his brother did it on purpose to get sympathy – it’s what he always did when he was fighting with someone to end the argument – but Spencer still felt like a dick. “Fuck, I don’t know,” he said, in lieu of an apology, as he caught his brother’s arm to steady him. Nothing of particular interest had happened that day that would put him in a bad mood, and he hadn’t woken up miserable this morning. He just felt bad, and he could not explain why.

The next day he took his frustration at his inexplicable bad mood out at the gym, and was surprised to find both Brendon and Patrick there. Patrick was stretching on the mats when Spencer approached, and Brendon was mostly just lying there.

“I’m never going to get over the hangover from Saturday,” Brendon groaned, making a half-hearted attempt to sit up, before lying back down.

 _Stop being a…_ something, Patrick signed, Spencer unable to translate the last word. It must have been a swear word, Dan refused to teach him those. Brendon was helping him learn them instead.

“Fuck off,” Brendon groaned.

 _Want some water?_ Spencer signed, handing Brendon his water bottle when he nodded and finally sat up with Spencer’s help.

“Why can’t you be more sympathetic like Spencer?” Brendon joked.

Patrick opened his mouth to reply, before thinking better of it and shaking his head with a fond smile. A pang of inane jealousy spiked through Spencer.  

“I am going back to my dorm before you can torture me with more exercise,” Brendon said, kissing Patrick on his sweaty cheek. “I’ll see you both at our club meeting tonight.” He slapped Spencer on the ass as he passed.

“Why’s he so sad?” Spencer asked, jerking his thumb in the direction Brendon just left.

“He’s sad?” Patrick asked, reaching his good arm up for Spencer to take. He hauled Patrick to his feet. “I didn’t notice anything.”

Spencer watched Brendon go, without the usual bounce in his step, and wondered how he knew when Brendon’s own best friend couldn’t tell.

The Disability Advocacy Club meeting that night was an absolute mad house. They bought pizza with their newly approved budget, and posted flyers all across campus encouraging people to join their club. There were, of course, a few people who came just for the free pizza and left immediately after; this was college after all. But there were quite a few new faces that Spencer thought were actually interested in the club, like Frank and his boyfriend Gerard, who had epilepsy. And Halsey brought her friends Sarah and Haley because, as she put it, “I love you guys, but there need to be more women in this group.” Tyler and Josh also decided to join “The Greatest Club on Campus,” as Gabe had convinced both of them to call it.

Patrick – his bad arm strapped to his chest because his shoulder started to bother him again –gave a short speech on what the club was all about, and what their plans were for the rest of the year and the following year. Then he pointed out all the current members of the club, encouraging the new faces to ask anyone in the club any questions they had before allowing people to dig into the pizza.

Halsey brought fake mustaches with her as an icebreaker tool. Spencer saw a few people eye them curiously, but no one made a move towards them, the room bathed in an unusual quietness, the guests not quite working up the nerve to talk to any of the members yet. Until Brendon grabbed one of the mustaches, and with a flourish, pasted it to his upper lip. He stood on a table in the classroom they booked for the meeting, and did a scarily good impression of Mario. Frank hopped up onto the desk with him, with his own mustache, and pretended to be Luigi. Gerard was laughing so hard, Spencer worried he was having a seizure.

Ice sufficiently broken, others grabbed mustaches of their own and started to mingle.

Ryan fielded a few ‘what is it like to be blind on campus’ questions, and ‘how do you deal with it,’ which he handled with surprising patience and very little sarcasm. Brendon fielded the same type of questions about his disability, and more than a few people asked William how he lost his leg, or Patrick the use of his arm. But besides those people, which is exactly why they needed this club, a lot people asked Spencer and the others exactly how they planned to increase awareness, or if they planned any volunteer activities and other questions along a similar vein.

Frank, Gerard, Tyler, Josh, Halsey’s friends and a few others joined the recently formed mailing list for their group, then they ate pizza, talked and drank soda which was thankfully not spiked by Joe. Overall, the Disability Advocacy Club counted the night as a huge success.

There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong with Brendon, he even expertly handled the idiot who asked him how to swear in sign language, but Spence couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

“You’re sad,” Spencer said the next day, letting himself into Brendon’s suite after the door opened just enough for him to squeeze through. “I’ve got ice cream, burgers from Carlos’, movies and alcohol if you want it.” Spencer forged his way into the room, and plopped down on the couch. “We should probably eat the ice cream first, seeing as there’s no freezer. I clearly did not think this through very well.”

It was worth making a fool out of himself to hear Brendon laugh.

“I’m not sad,” Brendon insisted, but took the offered ice cream.

“Don’t even front, I can tell. Now go put this movie in, and come sit and cuddle with me on the couch.”

“Yes sir,” Brendon mock saluted, putting in the bullshit comedy Spencer rented.

He waited for Brendon to settle into his side, before throwing an arm around Brendon’s shoulder, hand resting under Brendon’s shirt on the smooth skin of his stomach. “You gonna tell me why you’re so sa?” he asked, and said nothing more until Brendon was ready to tell him about it.

“It’s just,” Brendon said, twenty minutes later, “I know my family loves me, and I am so, so grateful they adopted me when I was a kid. But I don’t always fit in with them, you know, and I know I’m weird, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, but they keep pushing me to be more ‘normal.’”

“Family just wants what’s best for us,” he said, rubbing his thumb across Brendon’s bare skin. “But sometimes what they think is best for us is not what we need.” Spencer still remembered all the times his mother begged and tried to guilt trip him and Ryan into going to college closer to home. They would have missed out on some of the greatest experiences and greatest friends ever if they had. Ryan may have never found his soulmate either.

“I know. Just sometimes I wish they’d back off.”

“Have you tried telling them that?”

“Of course, but I’m both the baby and the only disabled member of the family. Naturally, everyone still treats me like I’m some sort of kid. I went through more in the first six years of my life than any of them will ever go through, but they hate when I remind them of that, or bring up anything from my time before they took me in. They really are impossible.”

“All family is,” Spencer said. “But they’ll come around eventually.”

“Well, in the meantime let’s get drunk and forget about their impossibleness.”

“I thought you were never drinking again?”

“No, I’m never smoking weed with Joe again. I have no idea where these lips have been and that’s disturbing. I could have kissed Patrick, for fuck’s sake, that’s like….that’s like you kissing Ryan.”

“Ew,” Spencer agreed.

“Yeah, ew. To never kissing Patrick,” he said, and took a gulp of the SoCo Spencer brought, choking a little as it burned his esophagus. “That’s disgusting,” he said, and took another sip.

“To never kissing our brothers,” Spencer agreed, grabbing the bottle and taking his own gulp of the bitter liquid. “This really is disgusting.”

It only took a fourth of a bottle to get them both dead drunk.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Brendon said, laughing so hard he fell off the couch. “Worst sex you’ve ever had?”

“I uh,” he said, hiding his blush by taking another sip of the SoCo.

“You’ve never had sex?” Brendon correctly guessed.

Spencer shrugged in response.

“Okay, worst date then?”

“Mandi Patterson. On our third date I tried to kiss her and she pulled away. I ended up dating her for two years though, before she dumped me the day before prom. You?” Spencer said, stealing the SoCo bottle and taking a sip.

“Shane Valdez. He tricked me into sleeping with him by making me believe he was my soulmate. It was quite the shock when I realized he didn’t have a tattoo. It wasn’t so much that that upset me, it was the fact that he pretended to be something he really wasn’t.”

“He saw your tat before?” Spencer asked. There were, unfortunately, a lot of con artists out there who found out someone’s soulmate words before they even meet them, pretend to be that person’s soulmate and then extorted them for various services or material goods. It was sickening.

“No,” Brendon said, grabbing the bottle back from him and taking a swig. “My tattoo is something a lot of people say to me as their first words. I don’t even think he realized it at the time, but his first words just happened to be the right words, and he used it to his advantage.”

“What it is, like ‘Hi’ or something generic like that?”

“No,” was all Brendon said. Spencer understood. Soulmate tattoos were pretty personal.

“I don’t know what my tattoo means, “Spencer said.  “There are no words and I’ve never been able to figure it out.”

“You’ll figure it out one day.”

“That’s what my mother always says to me,” he said lying down on the floor because his head was starting to spin. “When I was really little, though, like four and five, I could hear my soulmate crying and asking for help. I wanted to be there for him. I tried to send positive thoughts through the bond, but I knew it wasn’t the same as being there for them.”

“I’m sure they knew you were there for them, and appreciated it,” Brendon said, lying down next to him, turning his head so that they were facing, noses so close they almost touched.

Spencer contemplated kissing those beautiful lips, before shoving that thought into the garbage can in his mind. “How did you really lose your hearing?” he asked, startling both of them. Alcohol loosened the tongue of even the strongest of men, and Spencer was not a strong person.

“How did you really know I was sad?”

“You first.”

Brendon turned his head away to stare up at the ceiling. “My mother, my biological mother that is, was a prostitute and a drug addict. I don’t really remember much about her or about the plethora of boyfriends that came and went while I still lived with her, but there was one I can’t forget, the last one,” Brendon said, shuddering a little. Spencer scooted over until their sides were pressed together. “When I was real little, he used to hit me a lot. He hit me so hard and so many times in the head and ears that I lost a significant amount of hearing in both my ears. I don’t remember ever being able to hear well, not really, but I remember how terrified I was when I realized I couldn’t hear people talking anymore. I could tell my biological mother and her boyfriend were always yelling at me, and they were always so angry, but I didn’t know why anymore. I tried to tell them I couldn’t hear them, but it just made them angrier and made them hit me harder. When CPS picked me up, I didn’t say anything to them about not being able to hear, cuz I didn’t want them to hit me too. But I didn’t have any other way to communicate with them. I couldn’t even read.”

Spencer crept his hand along the floor until he found Brendon’s and laced their fingers together. “That must have been awful.”

“It was, but thankfully life gave me Patrick and he just sort of understood me. Anyways,” Brendon said, rubbing at his eyes. “Your turn. How did you know I was sad? I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it.”

“You were,” Spencer admitted. No one else had noticed a thing. “But I wasn’t lying earlier. It was just a feeling and I happened to be right.”

“You never cease to surprise me, Spencer Smith,” he said, turning his head back to stare Spencer in the eyes.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“A good thing indeed.”

*

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have a chance to call and cancel,” Brendon said when Spencer knocked on his door to take him to dinner. Brendon’s hair was in disarray, and he was wearing sweatpants and a plain white tee despite the fact that he was supposed to have just gotten back from class.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer asked, stepping inside Brendon’s suite.

“It’s William,” Brendon said, but before he could explain further, Spencer heard a sob emanating from within the suite.

“Fuck, what’s wrong?” he asked William, side stepping Brendon to head over to the distraught man.

“I,” he said, as Brendon settled on the couch next to Bill, rubbing his back. “I might have cancer again.” He buried his face in his hand and sobbed.

“You don’t know that for sure yet, right?” Spencer asked.

“No, but the symptoms are all the same as the last time,” William said, wrapping his long arms around Brendon and burying his face in Brendon’s shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” Spencer soothed, maneuvering himself so he was on the other side of the William on the couch. “You beat cancer once, you can do it again. And this time you have us to help you through it, and Gabe. You know he won’t leave your side.” William looked away in shame. “You haven’t told him yet, have you?”

“I don’t want him to know until I know for sure either way.”

“Bill, you have to,” Spencer said, before catching Brendon’s pursued lips. Obviously it was a tactic Brendon tried already, so he attempted a new one. “Do you remember the day Gabe was happy and smiling and joking around with everyone, and you looked at me and said you were taking him home because he was sad and in pain? When I asked you how you knew, you said you could just feel it.”

He waited for William to nod, before going on. “Not every soulmate pair can do that,” Spencer said. “There’s an old wives tales that says only those soulmates who have walked this earth for thousands of years, who have lived and died and lived again and found their soulmate every time, can do that. You and Gabe have done that. You’ve died together, and found each other again, because you have this beautiful unbreakable bond.”

“Yeah?” William asked, voice shaking.

“Yeah,” Spencer said. “And right now, because of that bond, Gabe knows you’re hurt, he knows you’re scared, and he also knows that you’re not telling him why. The universe wants us to find our soulmates. Let your soulmate be there for you when you need him the most.”

Looking at Brendon, William couldn’t articulate what he wanted because he was crying so hard.  Brendon, who understood unspoken words more than anyone, called Gabe.

Gabe showed up flustered and unable to talk himself, before he barged into the room and wrapped Bill up in his arms. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it,” Gabe said, kissing Bill’s temple.

“I’m sorry,” William said.

“Hey, none of that now,” Gabe said.

“Why don’t you two use my room to talk?” Brendon suggested.

“Are you sure?” Gabe said, Bill still crying too hard to say much. “We can—”

“No, it’s fine. Spence and I were gonna go get dinner anyways. Come on,” Brendon said, grabbing Spencer’s hand and leading him from the suite.

“I should have changed before I let them use my mine and Dallon’s room. I look like a mess,” Brendon said, as they sat down to dinner.

“A hot mess, at least,” Spencer said. “Plus this is college. Yesterday there were three guys in my morning lecture in pjs. No one cares.”

“Yeah,” Brendon said, pushing his food around his plate. “I don’t want William to have cancer.”

“Me either,” Spencer said, playing with his own pasta, before forcing himself to take a bite. Normally the food in the dining halls wasn’t so bad, but tonight it tasted like ash.

“Did you…” Brendon said, turning his head to watch people come and go. “Do you believe, what you told William about soulmates finding each other in more than one life?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Brendon set his fork down, and took Spencer’s hand. “Good.”

*

“You’re on your own this week,” Dan said when Spencer showed up for their now weekly lunch sign language lessons. Dan was holding a broom in one hand, and a textbook on semiconductor physics, which made Spencer’s brain hurt just looking at the title, in the other hand. “I’ve got a huge test tomorrow worth like 50 percent of our grade because our professor has ‘faith in us’ or some shit or other.”

“No worries,” Spencer said. He’d gotten pretty adept at sign language, and could at least hold a conversation with Brendon. However, Brendon, Dallon, and Dan still signed way too fast for him to keep up with, and Spencer’s vocabulary wasn’t as extensive as theirs so he often had to ask what a sign meant. Sometimes he still forgot he didn’t have to sign words like ‘the’ or ‘an’ because they were implied, and he fingerspelled them out, much to Brendon’s amusement. It never ceased to make Spencer’s heart beat faster to see him smile, though.

Dan had been teaching him the shortcuts and informal signs Brendon often used that they didn’t teach in formal sign language classes or on most online resources, but were fairly standard amongst some sign language users, and Brendon insisted on using around him because ‘he had to learn somehow.’ It was both annoying and endearing as shit.

“Here,” Dan said, handing him a piece of paper with a website written down on it. “This site has a large dictionary of various words with videos on how to do each. They also show some of the informal signs Brendon uses. I’d start with ‘have,’ Brendon uses the short cut for that one all the time.”

“Thanks,” Spencer said. 

There was a sock on his door when he got back to his door room. Ryan probably meant it as a joke, but he could hear a moan through the too thin door, and god he hoped that was Jon and not his brother. He backtracked quickly, and decided to set up camp in the library until his next class. He had no assignments to work on, which was definitely a first, so he pulled up the website Dan gave him earlier, and typed in ‘have’ in the search box once the page finished loading.

HAVE:

Hold bent hands a few inches away from the upper chest. Move hands towards chest until they touch. It is common for individuals to perform this sign with one hand.

There’s a short video demonstrating the sign, followed by a picture of a bent hand, thumb tucked on top, and two arrows curving in towards the chest. It seemed oddly familiar, especially the picture showing how the sign was done with one hand, but he couldn’t seem to place why.

He browsed the extensive dictionary, looking up random words like ‘shark’ so he could tell Brendon about the time his mother thought his sister had been eaten by a shark. He saw the word smile in the dictionary, and clicked on it in case he ever worked up the courage to tell Brendon how much he loved his smile.

The sign for smile was simple, and literally involved just drawing a smile on the face with two fingers. The picture showed an excessively happy woman, two fingers near the center of her lips and arrows curving upward on either side.

He’d say it was like a lightbulb turning on, but that would not accurately reflect the ‘oh my god, I’m such a fucking idiot’ moment he had when it finally clicked. He pulled his shirt up to reveal his tattoo, looked at the last symbol of two dots with two arrows that curved into a smile, then back at the picture on the screen, then back to his tattoo, then back to the picture on the screen.

_Holy shit._

He realized why the sign for ‘have’ looked so familiar earlier, too. It was the second symbol on his arm. The first one he didn’t understand quite yet, but he thought he knew the third one.

“Dallon,” he said, after dialing his number with sweaty hands, “what does the sign mean when you spread your fingers out, move them in a clockwise circular motion, and then squish your fingers together.”

“Well, uh, it’s hard to tell from that glorious description,” Dallon said, “but what I think you are referring to is the sign for beautiful.”

“And if someone points at you, that’s the sign for ‘you,’ right?”

“Uh, yes,” Dallon said.

“Thanks,” Spencer said, hanging up before Dallon could ask any questions.

He got it now. He finally understood what his tattoo meant. It said ‘ _you have a beautiful smile,’_ the very first words Brendon ever signed to him.

It made sense now, how he knew Brendon was sad though no one else could tell, how Brendon always seemed to know what he was going to say before he even had a chance to say it. And the crying and the pleas for help match perfectly up with the time Brendon spent with his biological mother and her abusive boyfriend, recently deafened and unable to communicate.

All he wanted to do was see Brendon immediately, but Brendon’s next class did not get out for 20 minutes, so he stalked the door to Brendon’s suite and waited for him to get home.

Brendon’s lips curved into a smile when he saw Spencer sitting at his door, but Spencer couldn’t respond in turn. Just because Brendon was destined to be his true love, didn’t mean this conversation was going to go well.

“You’re my soulmate,” Spencer said. Brendon’s steps faltered, before he came to a complete stop, catching his lip between his teeth. “I figured it out like you said I would. You have a beautiful smile,” Spencer rambled when it became apparent Brendon was not going to say anything. He wasn’t expecting, like declarations of love or anything like that, but _something_ would have been nice. “That’s the first thing you ever signed to me, and that’s what my tattoo says. You’re my soulmate. And please tell me you’re hearing aids are on right now and you can hear this.”

 _Holy shit,_ he thought yet again. He didn’t actually expect this day to ever come, and he wondered if this was how everyone felt when they meet their soulmate, like he was falling through the air without a parachute. Weightless. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, fingers tingling, face flush, heart breaking through his chest. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe.

Until he saw the soft smile on Brendon’s face that was just for him, that spread across Brendon’s face until it reached his eyes, always so beautiful, always so alight. Brendon slid down the wall next to Spencer, offering his hand, which Spencer took without hesitation.

“I hoped it would be you,” he said.

“I hoped it would be you, too,” Spencer, and leaned forward to kiss him.

“Finally figured it out, eh?” Dan loudly said, interrupting them before their lips could touch.

“If you knew, why didn’t you tell us?” Spencer asked, miffed that one of his friends would keep something like that from him.

“It was more fun this way, and I knew you’d figured it out eventually. Plus, I didn’t really know for sure, considering I’ve never actually seen your tattoo, and I didn’t want to cause problems in case I was wrong, but I was pretty sure I was right. That’s why I sent you to that website. I was hoping it would help.”

“Well, thanks for that,” Brendon said. “But you couldn’t wait five more seconds before interrupting us?”

“Oh, shit sorry, yeah, I didn’t think, sorry,” Dan said, and actually looked a bit guilty. “I’ll just…leave now,” he said, slinking away from his suite.

“Sorry, I’m back,” Dan said seconds later. “We have club, in like five minutes. And you probably knew that, and I’m really going now. I swear. Sorry, again.”

Spencer just rested his forehead against Brendon’s and laughed with him.

*

“Brendon and Spencer are soulmates!” Dan announced their presence to the club.

 

“And I don’t have cancer!” William announced, flouncing into the room, Gabe tightly clasping his hand. “I have mono!”

“I am so relieved,” Jon said, hugging Bill tightly and burying his face in William’s chest. When Jon pulled back, there were tears in both their eyes. “Don’t scare me like that again, asshole.” Jon punched him in the arm for good measure, before letting the others have their turn at hugging William.

“I hear you found your soulmate,” Bill said when it was Spencer’s turn to hug him.

“Well actually, I found him a long time ago. It just took me awhile to realize it,” Spencer said, linking his hands with Brendon.

“I’m so happy for you,” William said, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders and pulling them both close. However, William pulled them towards his chest too quickly, lost balance and crashed into Gabe, who wrapped his arms around all three of them.

“Group hug!” Gab declared, which was how Spencer found himself in the midst of a large pile of people. He’d learned to just go with the flow when these kinds of things happened, so he rested his head on Bill’s shoulder and enjoyed the warmth of being surrounded by the people he cared about most, right up there with his family. These people, every single original member of the Disability Advocacy Club, were family to him now.

“You know what this means,” Pete said, somewhere from the outer ring of the pile or people.

“Don’t say it,” Dallon said from where he was squished next to Spencer.

“But we have two reasons to celebrate now. I have to,” Pete responded.

“Okay fine,” Dallon sighed. “Party at Pete’s place!”

“That’s the spirit!” Pete cheered.

“No giving us random drugs that may or may not have been roofies,” Jon said. “I had to listen to Ryan complain about the mental image he had of kissing his brother for weeks.”

“Yeah, and if I’m going to make out with Pete, I wanna actually remember it,” Ryan said.

“Me too,” Halsey said, inciting a group laugh which reverberated through all of them because of how tightly packed together they still were.

“Why are we still hugging?” Dan asked.

“Because we’re awesome and I love all of you,” Brendon said.

“We love you too, B,” Patrick said.

“Okay, but seriously, let go on three?” Halsey said from where she’s squished next to Brendon.

“I’m never letting go,” Gabe said, but Spencer felt the arms tight around him start to loosen.

“Oh yeah? We gonna collectively shit, shower and shave like this?” Halsey argued, wiggling her way free from the group as everyone started to let go.

“We could make it work,” Gabe retaliated.

“Okay, everyone, let’s go!” Pete said, cutting off what was sure to be scathing reply from Halsey, as he ushered people out the door.

“We’re having the party now?” Dallon asked, incredulous.

“Of course,” Pete replied.

“But it’s Tuesday,” Dallon argued.

“This is a special moment,” Pete said. “B and Spence found their soulmates, William doesn’t have cancer. Ooh, it can be an ‘I have mono,’ party. I could get behind that, right babe?”

“Sure babe,” Patrick indulged him, pecking him on the lips.

“See Patrick agrees. Don’t be lame,” Pete said.  

*

They share their first kiss (that they could remember) under the pink sparkly monstrosity of a disco ball Pete replaced the strobe light with when Gerard joined the group and started coming to his parties. _So Far Gone_ by Thousand Foot Crutch crooned from the worn speakers, the pink light of the disco ball reflecting off the walls like stars twinkling in the night sky as they swayed to the slow beat of the song. Brendon’s hands rested in his back pockets, his cheek on Spencer’s shoulders, content to follow Spencer’s lead.

“I think we should go on a proper date,” Spencer said, Brendon humming his assent into Spencer’s skin. “And Summer’s coming up soon. We should make plans for when you’re not busy making your awesome documentary.”  

“Sounds perfect,” Brendon said, “but even if we just go with the flow, we’re not sliding by each other anymore, we’ll collide again and again like two liquid molecules in a nanometer container.”

“Did you get roofied by Joe again?” Spencer asked.

“Maybe,” Brendon said, his laugh reverberating through Spencer’s chest. “All I’m saying is we have the rest of our lives together, and the next, and the next and the next. We’ll always find each other.”

Brendon leaned back, his face titling up towards him, and finally, finally Spencer closed the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not know sign language. All the sign language in this story, I learned form online websites, so I do not claim accuracy. If any of it is wrong, please let me know and I will gladly fix it, and give you a shout out in the end notes if you want.


End file.
